


What a Lovely Way to Burn

by within_a_dream



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Injury Recovery, Love Confessions, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: Jack gets shot, and says some things he shouldn't.





	What a Lovely Way to Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



The gunshot hit him like, well, a shot to the chest. Jack went down immediately, vision going black around the edges. It was a man at the door, wearing a dark hat. He tried to look up, to see where the shooter had gone, but he couldn’t lift his head. The black kept creeping further into his field of vision, and as much as he knew he needed to do anything but, he found the idea of staying right here on the carpet very appealing.

The door to his hotel room slammed shut. That would be the gunman, then—one less thing to worry about. Which was a relief, because breathing was taking all his concentration. There was a horrible ache in his chest (no shit, he’d just been _shot_ ), and his limbs felt like they were encased in concrete. The phone was so close, only a few steps away, but it might as well have been across the country.

This wasn’t the worst way he could have gone, all things considered. Jack let his eyes shut, and let the darkness claim his thoughts.

  


Someone was shouting. Jack wanted to tell them to shut the hell up, he was trying to sleep, but the words got stuck in his throat. His eyes drifted open, and he could see a few blurry figures standing over him. They picked him up and set him (more like threw him, it set his chest aching all over again) on the bed. Then one of them pulled a knife and cut his shirt open.

"At least buy me a drink first," Jack tried to say, but it came out as an incoherent moan.

"There’s a doctor on the way," the knife-wielder said, and after a moment, Jack was able to place the voice—Carter. "Can you hear me, Jack?"

He tried to nod, without much success. Carter pressed her hands to his chest, making the dull ache intensify to a sharp pain. A matching pain built up behind Jack’s eyes, and soon enough he was slipping away again.

  


Jack was in a room he didn’t recognize now, with a window looking out to a beautiful garden. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, or why his chest hurt so badly, or what he was doing half-naked and wrapped up in bandages.

He sat up, and almost fell right back down again. His head ached like the worst hangover he’d ever had, although the way the room was spinning, maybe he was still drunk.

The door swung open, and Jack tried to dive for cover. Once he saw the man at the door, he didn’t know why he’d been afraid. Just some guy in a suit, holding a tray of food. Jack squinted, trying to make the world come into focus. Was that—Stark’s butler?

"Ah, Mr. Thompson, you’re awake! Wonderful." Definitely Stark’s butler. "I’ve brought lunch, if you’re well enough to eat it."

This was Stark’s house, then. Maybe Carter had brought him here. He remembered seeing Carter, although he didn’t remember when. "I’m starving," he tried to say, because now that he thought about it, he was. But it came out all garbled.

Jarvis sat down beside the bed, balancing the tray on his lap, and held a spoonful of broth to Jack’s lips. He wanted to protest that he could feed his damn self, but hell, if he couldn’t even manage to _say_ that he probably couldn’t.

  


The next time the door opened, it was Sousa, and his hand resting right where his holster would be brought back memories of another tall man opening the door to Jack’s bedroom.

 _Shit_. Someone had _shot_ him. And they’d come back for him, he was sure of it, which meant he was putting Carter and Sousa and Jarvis and his wife in danger.

The world still spun when he stood up, but Jack fought through it.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Jack tried to push Sousa aside, but ended up falling against his chest instead. Sousa stumbled backwards, and Jack took the opportunity to duck around him. "I gotta get out of here."

Sousa got his arm around Jack’s waist, pulling him back towards the bed. "You’re injured, Jack. You need to stay in bed."

"I _know_ that!" This would be so much easier if he could make his thoughts into words, if he wasn’t thinking through putty. "Someone’s after me."

"That’s why you’re _here_ , and not in the hospital." Sousa sounded about ready to deck him. "You’re safe, I promise. Lay down, you’re going to tear open your--"

Before Sousa could finish, something stabbed through Jack’s chest, right at the center of the bandaged area. He looked down and saw blood spreading across the white, and then the pain spread too, and he screamed.

"Peggy, I need a little help in here!"

As another set of footsteps approached the door, Jack’s world went black again.

  


Jack was hot, so hot. He was trying to throw off the blanket over him, but his arms felt like lead and he couldn’t get them to obey. His eyelids were lead, too, but he managed to force them open.

Carter and Sousa were sitting at his bedside, faces pale and drawn. "You look like shit," he said, before he could think better of it.

He wasn’t expecting both of them to smile.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Sousa said, sounding much more worried than Jack had expected he’d be.

"You could have died, you absolute idiot!" And Carter was _definitely_ more worried than he’d expected.

"People would be coming for me," he said.

"Which is why we had you under _guard_."

Carter wasn’t grasping his meaning, and Jack wanted to scream. "Yeah, by you. Couldn’t let the people I love die for me." Something in the back of his mind said he’d regret that later, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember why.

Carter and Sousa had near-identical expressions of surprise now. "I stand by my statement," Carter said, but the shake in her voice undermined that.

"I need to sleep," Jack said, and he did.

  


Jack woke up drenched in sweat and finally, finally, cool, and with a horrible memory of just what exactly he’d said to Carter and Sousa when he was feverish.

He sat up, taking it slow, and for the first time since he’d woken up in this room, he didn’t feel like he was about to collapse. His chest still ached, but it didn’t feel like he was being impaled any longer, more the dull ache of muscle and skin and bone knitting themselves back together.

Sousa was sitting in the corner, dozing off with his arm resting on his crutch. Jack leaned back against the bedframe, trying not to think about what Sousa would say to him when he woke up.

Eventually, Sousa woke up, his eyes meeting Jack’s. "How long have you been awake?"

Jack shrugged, immediately regretting it as it sent ripples of pain across his chest. He tried to think of an apology, a joke, something that would erase everything he’d said when he was too sick to remember what a bad idea it was to tell them the truth.

Before he could manage that, Sousa shouted, "Peggy! He’s back!"

Great, now he’d have both of them to apologize to at once. When Carter walked into the room, before Jack could lose his nerve, he said in a rush, "I said some things I shouldn’t have, when I was sick."

"I should say so." Carter was smiling. "Perhaps you could try to curb your newly-found impulses for self-sacrifice the next time you’re shot."

She must have known that’s not what he meant. "Anything I said, about how I feel about you—I promise it won’t come up again. And I’ll leave as soon as I can walk out of here."

"You don’t have to, unless that’s what you want." Sousa was frowning. He made his way over to the bed, carefully sitting on the side of it. He bent down, and before Jack could register what was happening, kissed him.

It was light, careful, the kind of kiss a twelve-year-old gives his girlfriend after he takes her to the movies. But it still made Jack’s heart race. "You sure about this? You’ve both made it pretty clear that I’m an absolute idiot."

Carter leaned down as well, mirroring Sousa’s kiss. "Yes, but you’re our idiot."

Before he could think better of it, Jack said, "You know, this wasn’t how I imagined both of you in bed with me."

Carter brushed his hair back. "Time enough for that later, I think."

"That a promise?" But he knew it was. Maybe he’d have to thank that goon for shooting him.


End file.
